On the basis of the general framework of United Nations’ "indirect/satellite" accounting system O Ointegrated system of environment & economy accounting SEEA (1992) and 93’ SNA, the specific objectives of this paper is try to construct one simple, effective and practical of China (CSEEA), and thereby trial estimate the 1992 Chinese environmental adjusted GDP (Green GDP), under Chinese National Accounting System’s reform practice.

1. Introduction

The discussion of integrated accounting for environment and economy under the framework of sustainable development has received increased attention by the international society, since the report of the World Commission on Environmental and Development was published in 1987. This heightening interest led to the proposal contained in Agenda 21 of the United Nations Conference on Environmental and Development (Rio de Janiero Earth Summit 1992) to encourage the development of integrated system environmental and economy accounting. In China, such proposal was also contained in the following Chinese Agenda 21 which was put forward in 1993.

As well-known, since the 80’s, China began to try to transfer her national accounting system form MPS to SNA in order to be suitable to her market-oriented economy reform process began from 1978. Till 1992, one new national accounting system was put forward and was to be spread in all over the country. However, this new national accounting system is still belong to the traditional SNA (1968) pattern, the natural resources and environmental factor was not considered specially in it. Meanwhile, works on the study on Chinese integrated system of environmental and economy accounting were just started.

By now, various methods about how to realize the integrated accounting between environment and economy have been proposed, two of which methods are noticeable: one is so called "direct "method modifying the core system of the SNA itself with natural resource factors, and the other is so called "indirect (satellite)" method developing an SNA satellite system for integrated accounting. The former is abandoned gradually today for it’s complexity and huge works and non-sustainable for the National Accounting System. On the other hand, the later, however, is accepted widely all over the world, especially, after the United Nation revised its traditional 68’SNA and developed one general framework of integrated system environmental and economy accounting (SEEA) as a part of this revision in 1993.

Till now, various components of the SEEA have been tested in case studies in Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Thailand etc.. Specially, one concrete and complete national SEEATiJapanese SEEA was developed as a satellite account interconnected with the central framework of Japanese SNA in Japan in 1995. The work in Japan not only accumulated many good experience of construction of the concrete national SEEA but also demonstrate further that SEEA is an efficient system which can provide a valuable information base for integrated development and planning policy.

Under this situation, it’s doubtless an urgent and important task to develop a simple, effective and practical integrated system of environment & economy accounting of China (CSEEA), which is consistent with the Chinese new SNA framework and capable of assessing the burden of economic activities on the natural resources and environment in China today. And using the other country’s experience, especially Japan’s, for reference is obviously an effective way.

On the basis of the United Nation’s 93’SNA and General Framework of Integrated System Environmental and Economy Accounting and Chinese National Accounting System’s reform practice, the specific objectives of this study is try to construct one simple, effective and practical integrated system of environment & economy accounting of China (CSEEA), and thereby estimate the 1992 Chinese environmental adjusted GDP (Green GDP) and assess of two major aspects of economic policy, (a) the sustainability of economy growth, (b) the structure distortion of the economy by environmentally unsound production and consumption pattern. This study is further research on the basis of our one former works on input-output accounting for natural resources-economy-environment.

2.General Framework of Integrated System of Environment-Economy Accounting (SEEA)

The following table is the basic structure of United Nations’ Integrated System of Environment-Economy Accounting (SEEA), in which the shaded area represents the SNA’s part, supplies and use accounts, and non-financial/assets accounts. The non-shaded area represents environmental and natural resources elements related with its economy uses.

Due to data limitation, only the following aspects are focused in construction:
(1) Natural assets: there eight kinds of natural assets i.e. forest, grass, cultivated land, coal, oil, natural gas, air and water be considered;

(2) Depletion of resources: the costs of extraction of the most important sub-soil resources, such as coal, oil, and nature gas be considered;

(3) Degradation of natural assets caused by residuals: qualitative deterioration of natural assets, such as environmental pollution caused by economic activities will be evaluated in monetary terms. The imputed environmental costs for the following items be considered by source and type of natural assets: Air pollution (SO2, Dusty) and Water Pollution: Sewage (BOD, COD).

(4) Destruction of ecosystem: ecosystem function lose of several kinds of resources will be considered by type of natural resource (i.e. forest, grass, cultivated land).

All study is based on the marginal opportunity cost theory for natural resources pricing and Chinese National Accounting System’s reform.

The date used in this study come from Chinese Statistics Year-Book, Chinese Input-output Table, Chinese Environmental Statistics Year-Book, the relevant materials (papers, reports and government documents etc.) on Chinese natural resources and environmental and the relevant research reports on natural resources pricing and accounting etc.

2) Part II
(02) Use of Economy Natural Assets
-consumption of natural assets that can yield economic profit when the reserves have been proven;
(03) Use of Produced Natural Assets
-monetary valuation of quantitative changes (depletion) and qualitative changes (degradation) of natural assets which can be re-produced by human being i.e. cultivated assets which are artificially produced biological assets.. They are one part of the cost called imputed environmental costs, are subtracted from net domestic product to reach EDP. This is broken down into two items, i.e., (04), depletion of these natural assets caused by over-exploitation/over-used etc. i.e. forest, grass etc., and (05), degradation of these natural assets caused by residuals, i.e. forest, grass etc.;
(05) Degradation
-monetary valuation of recovering of cultivated assets;
(06) Use of Non-Produced Natural Assets
-monetary valuation of quantitative changes (depletion) and qualitative changes (degradation) of natural assets which cannot be re-produced by human being i.e. subsoil mineral assets. They are also one part of the cost of imputed environmental costs, are subtracted from net domestic product to reach EDP. This is also broken down into two items, i.e., (07), depletion of these natural assets caused by over-exploitation/over-used etc. i.e. subsoil resources, cultivated land, and (08), degradation of these natural assets caused by residuals i.e. cultivated land;
(07) Depletion
-monetary valuation of extraction of subsoil resources;
(09) Restoration of Non-Produced Assets
-costs for cultivation/exploitation of recovering these natural assets.
3) Part III
(10) Supplies
-gross products of goods and services;
(11) Use of Products
-goods and services that are produced and delivered to intermediate consumption for production activities, final consumption, formation of produced assets and exports;
(12) Use of Economy-Produced Man-made Assets
-consumption/Depreciation of man-made produced tangible fixed assets (13);
(14) Value Add/Net GDP
4) Part VI
(18) Use of Non-Economy Natural Assets
-consumption of the other else natural assets which beyond the economy assets;
(19) Use of Non-Produced Natural Assets
-monetary valuation of quantitative changes (depletion) and qualitative changes (degradation) of these natural assets i.e. air, water, etc.. They are also one part of imputed environmental costs, and, are subtracted from net domestic product to reach EDP. This is broken down into two items, i.e.,
(20), depletion of these natural assets, and (21), degradation of these natural assets caused by residuals.
(21) Degradation of natural assets caused by residuals
-monetary valuation of environmental pollution, such as air and water pollution caused by residuals from economic activities.
(22) Restoration of non-produced assets
-costs for elimination of residuals from environmental media such as air, water, etc. and for restoration of ecosystems
5) Part V
(23) Environmentally Adjusted Net Domestic Product
-net value added after subtracting the imputed environmental coasts, which are not evaluated in the market, from net domestic product (NDP). NDP is the value added after subtracting the consumption of fixed assets, i.e., the depreciation of accumulated assets, from gross domestic product (GDP). The imputed environmental costs are monetary evaluation of depletion and degradation of all natural assets (both economy natural assets and non-economy natural assets), hence are to be subtracted from NDP in order to reach net welfare which takes into account the burden on the environment of economic activities.

6) Part VI
(24) Others Adjustment
-adjustment due to price change and volume change of both economy assets (main);
(25) Revaluation
- revaluation of economy man-made and natural assets. This revaluation is due to changes in price;
(26) Volume Changes
-changes in amount due to such factors as war, natural disaster, new discovery, i.e. discovery of natural assets, changes in land use, natural growth of cultivated assets and so on.3.2 Columns of CSEEA
1) Part I
[01] Domestic Production
-costs of production activities that consist of intermediate inputs, consumption of fixed capital, indirect taxes and subsidies, compensation of employees and operating surplus.

This is broken down into [02], environment-related, and [03], others, and environment-related production activities include activities delivering environment protection-related goods and services to other establishments, households and so on, such as production of environmental protection equipment, sewerage, disposal of wastes, environment assessment services, etc. and activities that are executed inside individual establishments;

2) Part II
[04] Final Consumption
-the final consumption is divided into two parts, [05] government and [06] households;

3) Part III
[07] Foreign Trade
-goods and services in foreign trade which is also broken down into [08], environment-related, and [09], others, and environment-related goods and services such as production of environmental protection equipment, sewerage, disposal of wastes, environment assessment services, etc. ;

4) Part IV
[10] Economy Assets
-this is broken into [11], produced assets and [17], non-produced assets;
[11] Produced Assets
-this is broken into [12], man-made assets, such as inventory, structures, machinery and equipment, and [13], natural assets/[14] cultivated assets, which are artificially produced biological assets, that be further divided into [15] cultivated forest and [16] cultivated grass;
[17] Non-produced natural assets
-this consists of land use, [18]/cultivated land [19], subsoil resources [20] which is divided into coal [21], oil [22], natural gas [23].

5) Part V
[24] Non-Economy Asset
-this only consists of non-produced natural assets [25] which is further divided into air [26], water [27].

Two types of adjustments are calculated with respect to the accumulation of all natural economy assets. The adjustments made are of the type of adjustments relating to the accumulation of natural assets, and other adjustments. Adjustments relating to accumulation of natural assets comprise of adjustment imputed environmental costs and volume changes due to economic causes. Other adjustments capture volume changes due to non-economic causes and revaluation due to market price changes. Meanwhile, the adjustments of man-made economy assets, fixed assets, only capture volume changes due to non-economic causes and revaluation due to market price changes.

4.2 Imputed Environmental Costs

The external cost (exhaustion/damages) brought by economy activities are composed of two main parts. One is depletion of resources caused by the over-exploitation of nature resources, which mainly refers to the temporary or eternal exhaustion of physical resource in amount, or in the other words, is a disappearance of some kinds of physical resources temporarily or eternally. The other is degradation of natural assets caused by residuals and destruction of ecosystems caused by the pollutant emission produced in the process of economy activities, which mainly refers to the quality decreasing of environmental resources (worsened in quality), means the service-quality of environmental falls down.

Environmental deterioration associated with economic activities were evaluated in monetary terms and regarded as the cost of economic activities. Environment-related external diseconomies were measured in monetary terms. The methodologies to arrive at imputed environmental costs are based on the theory of marginal opportunity cost and the method of maintain cost.

1) Framework of Marginal Opportunity Cost (MOC)

According to marginal opportunity cost (MOC) theory, marginal opportunity cost refers to the costs not only the production cost but full costs formed in the process of human activities, it’s an useful tool to measure of the results of resource exhaustion and pollution emission from the perspective of economics, or, in the other words, it’s an efficiency evaluation method to evaluate human economy activities in the point of society view.

MOC is equal to the total traditional production costs in the process of a certain human economy activities plus the social costs originating from its side effects. It is the most convenient and common concept in the management of rare natural sources and environmental protection. This cost is composed of three components.

The first is marginal production cost (MPC), which refers to labor, capital and the others traditional production material input.

The second is marginal environmental or external cost (MEC), which refers to the loss in environmental ecology (degradation of natural assets caused by residuals and destruction of ecosystems) caused by economy activities. For instance, forest degeneration, results from wood over-cut, can lead to soil erosion and deposition of rivers and reservoirs, which will further have adverse effects on agricultural output, power generation and water quality.

The third is marginal user cost (MUC), which has something to do with our consideration for the future. The exploitation of non-renewable resources with limited reserves means their exhaustion in the future--depletion of resources. In other words, the utilization of per unit of resource at present implies the decrease of one unit of resource in the future. Therefore, a cost for scarcity should be complemented in MOC. The scarcity cost depends on the scale of exploitation, on the proportion of demand for resource in the future to current demand, on the possible substitutions in the future, its cost, and discount rate.

Regarding renewable resources, it is not necessary to add scarcity cost to MOC, apart from MPC and MEC, for the consumption of renewable resources can be made up by natural and artificial regeneration. However, in many countries, many resources were utilized in a way of non-sustainability, some even might cause the depletion of resources. In this case, the renewable resources should be treated as nonrenewable resources while measuring their value.

2) Method of Maintain Cost

The method of maintenance cost in principle will compute the imputed environmental costs, which enables the measurement of qualitative and quantitative changes in the environment by estimating the required cost of maintaining the quality and quantity of the environment at a certain level. It will be necessary to assume a specific activity to keep the quality and quantity of the environment at a certain level for each of the natural assets considered.

3) Methodologies

(a) Degradation of natural assets caused by residuals

Estimated as cost of reducing one unit of discharge of each substance (air pollution, and water pollution) at the source and then multiply this by the volume of this discharge to get at the estimated value of the degradation of natural assets caused by residuals. This method is used in estimation of use of non-produced natural assets of non-economy natural assets.

For air pollution (SOx, NOx) and water pollution ( BOD,COD), the cost is the cost of reducing a unit discharge of each substance multiplied by the volume of discharge

(b) Destruction of ecosystem

The costs of the destruction of ecosystem due to land development will be set equal to the value added that will be lost if the development is terminated. The costs of the destruction of ecosystem in cultivated forests are estimated by the MEC of live wood. It’s same to the destruction of ecosystem in grass. The costs to cultivated forest and grass destruction due to man and nature caused (forest fires and logging damages) will be set to the value of production lost corresponding to the damaged cultivated forests. This method is used in estimation of use of produced natural assets of economy natural assets.

c) Depletion of Natural Resources

It’s mainly refers to the use of non-produced natural assets of economy natural assets. For the produced natural assets of economy natural assets such as forest, costs due to excess felling of felling will be set equal to the value of production corresponding to excess felling, i.e. felling in excess of its natural growth. This cost is estimated by the user cost:

UC=Y-R

Y/R=1-{1/(1+r)n+1}

wherewhUC is user costC Y is real income iR is royalty fee i=revenue-costcocor is discount rate in is period of natural resources using(exploitation). iS. El Serafy. 198998

Consumption of non-renewable resources may eventually require a substitute to be found for them at some future date. For example, consuming a ton of coal now means that there will be one ton less available at some future date. The lost benefits due to future use forgone are known as the user cost , or depletion premium. Optimal exploitation of appreciation in the value of the asset is less than the rate of interest.

For extraction of sub-soil resources, the cost is the difference between the actual revenue from exploitation and the constant eternal revenue.

4.3 Environmentally Adjusted Net Domestic Product (EDP)
Environmentally adjusted net domestic product (EDP) is the value added obtained by subtracting the imputed environmental costs (use of economy assets and use of non-economy assets) from Net Domestic Products (NDP). NDP is the value added obtained by subtracting consumption of fixed capital from gross domestic product (GDP). Consumption of fixed capital is the required cost of restoring the stock of fixed capital used in production activities to its opening level and therefore it is excluded in obtaining the net value added generated by economic activities. The imputed environmental costs are the costs of depletion, degradation and destruction of the natural assets due to economic activities and should be excluded in computing the environmentally adjusted net domestic product.

55bSummary of Trial Estimate

On the basis of our calculation of selected items that comprise imputed environmental costs, we arrive at the following estimates:

5.1 Imputed Environmental Costs

Total imputed environmental costs (including the deplete of natural resources, the destruction of ecosystem and the degradation of natural assets) were about RMB___________ billion, or billioof GDP(or f GDP(of NDP) in 1992 (see table 5-1).

A breakdown by type of natural assets shows that the costs were RMB b breakdowbillion (illion) from use of economy natural assets, in which of eco from use of produced natural assets and from u from use of non-produced natural assets, RMBfrfrom use of billion (’mP|TD) from use of non-economy natural assets, in which from from air pollution and 64.84% from water pollution (see table 5-2).

Table 5-2
unitniRMBMBBillionili IEC
UENAEÕÕNEUAEÕÕÕ_ÕÕb_(þÕb_
(þbÕÕb_(þbÕb_(Õ_________
Õb_(þb__þûÕb_(þb__þûÕb_(þb__þÕb_
(þb__þû¿0Õb_(þb__Õb_(þb__þûÕ_Õb_(þb_Õb_
(þb_Õb_(þb_Õb_(þb_Õb_(þb_Õb_(þb _Õ
(where UENA is the use of economy natural assets, UPNA is the use of produced natural assets, UNPNA is the use of non-produced natural assets, NEUA is the use of non-economy natural assets)

5.2 Depletion of Natural Resources

Depletion of natural resources was RMBtutural resou billion in which
depletion of subsoil resources were RMBbibillion in billion
(35.76%), in which RMBbibillion (35.billion (0.3%) from use of coal,
RMBilillion (0.3%billion (99.52%) from use of natural oil and RMBMBMB_
and 99billion (0.18%) from use of natural gas (see table 5-3).

Table 5-3

unitniRMBMBBillioniliDNRNDSRSÕÕÕForestoÕ_

ÕÕb_(þÕb_(Õb_(þb__þû¿0ÕÕ_________ Õb_(þb__þûÕb_(þb__þû¿Õb_(þb__þÕb_(þb__
þûÕb_(þb__þû¿0Õ_35.76%70.3%.99.52%90.18%.64.24%4Õ
(where DNR is the depletion of natural resources, DSR is the depletion of subsoil resources)

5.3 Degradation of Natural Assets Caused by Residuals

Degradation of natural assets was RMBegegradationbillion, in which degradation of natural assets caused by destruction of ecosystem was RMBofof natural billion (billio) (only forests, grass and cultivated land be considered here), degradation of natural assets caused by residuals was RMB ( (only foresbillion (illion) (only air pollution (SO2, dusty) and water pollution: sewage (BOD, COD) (see table 5-3).

In degradation of natural assets caused by destruction of ecosystem, there are RMBn n degradatbillion (0.18%) comes from use of forest,
RMBilillion (0billion (0.18%) comes from use of grass and
RMBgr0.._ass anbillion (99.52%) from use of cultivated land.
In degradation of natural assets caused by residuals, there are RMBilillion (billion (illio) come from degradation of air quality caused by SO2, dusty emission, RMB d dusty emibillion (ilill) comes from degradation of water quality caused by sewage (BOD,COD) emission (also see table 5-4).

Defensive expenditures on the maintain of natural assets ware RMBef12.2226998 billion, in which 43.06% iRMBMB5.262673 billionbiwere used on the maintain of economy natural assets, 56.94%6.RMBMB6.9600268 billionbi were used on the maintain of non-economy natural assets.

In the defensive expenditures used on the maintain of economy natural assets, 43.22% are exploitation fee of sub-soil resources (coal, oil and natural gas), 16.26% are abatement fee on solid waste. In the defensive expenditures used on the maintain of non-economy natural assets, 43.22% are used as abatement fee of sewagen RMBMB3.007907544
billionbibi56.78% are used as abatement fee of SO2 and
dusty anRMBMB3.952119256 billionbibisee table 5-5-5.

At the beginning of 1992, tangible assets of China were
RMBt 559705.7283 Billion, in which man-made assets was
RMBMB559705.7283 Billion (1.15% of total tangible assets), natural assets was RMB.1553274.1352 Billion (98.85% of total tangible assets).

At the end of 1992, tangible assets of China were RMBt 584494.0812 Billion,
in which man-made assets was RMBRM7346.988174 Billion, natural assets was RMBBi577147.0931 Billion, increased 4.43%.414.23%4.4.31%
respectively compared with the beginning of 1992'svesee table 5-7-7.

There are three factors which results in natural assets increased at the end of 1992. First one is the high re-evaluation of natural assets which caused by the price (increasing) change of some relative products, e.g. high re-evaluation of forest assets which caused by increase of log price (product of forest resources), sub-soil resources (coal, oil and natural gas) price etc.. Second is the transfer from non-economy natural assets to economy natural assets, e.g. sub-soil resources coal, oil and natural gas as we mentioned above. The third one is the increase of cultivated natural assets (mainly refers to produced natural assets), e.g. forest asset come from tree planting.